Pets at Home has announced a new partnership with Dogs Trust which will see the retailer donate more than £2 million worth of Wainwrights dog food to the charity over three years.
The donation will be used to feed the 1,400 dogs at Dogs Trust’s 18 rehoming centres in the UK. In addition, each dog leaving the centre will also be provided with a free 2kg bag of Wainwrights, worth £6.99.
The partnership is a result of Pets at Home’s new VIP (Very Important Pets) Club, an initiative launched at the end of last year which enables shoppers to convert the points – or VIP Lifelines - they receive when they shop into support for a local or national animal charity of their choice.
The announcement builds on Pets at Home’s track record of promoting the rehoming of dogs and other pets. The retailer has previously launched three in-store Advice and Adoption Areas with Dogs Trust in its Barnstaple, Telford and Birstall branches.
Nick Wood, chief executive of Pets at Home, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to provide Dogs Trust with Wainwrights food over the next three years as we’re dedicated to pet adoption and want to ensure abandoned dogs are kept healthy and happy while they wait to find loving new homes.
“This is the first official manifestation of how our customers’ VIP Lifelines can be converted into millions of pounds worth of supplies to national and local animal charities across the UK. We’re extremely thankful to everyone who signed up to the scheme and made this donation happen.”
Clarissa Baldwin, chief executive of Dogs Trust, added: “We are very grateful to Pets at Home and their VIP club members for the extremely generous donation of three years’ worth of Wainwrights food! It is paramount to us that our dogs are looked after correctly and fed in a healthy way.
"We have enjoyed a long standing relationship with Pets at Home and this amazing donation means that we can put the money we save towards caring for even more dogs over the next few years. I am sure that our canine residents will thoroughly enjoy their new menu!”